This feels like a Gamechanger prop "A converstation between two villains that can only speak in monologues"

Can't believe Brennan was the first person to discover the one technique to defeat trolls: saying "please don't have discourse in the comment section"

Never have I seen someone match Brennans energy... I need ross in more games.

Brennan in Contested Role: "Please no discourse in the comments." Brennan is every other video: "GET IN THE COMMENTS!!"

I am shocked that in a video with Brennan Lee Mulligan, the phrase "materialistic, cynical, realpolitik Dungeons and Dragons" was spoken and Brennan didn't say it.

Petition to invite Ross to a D20 season just to see him be saucy with Brennan back and forth

Oh, I fucking love this segment. One of my favorite bits is getting fake angry over things that don't matter

"WHERE ARE YOUR IDEALS THEN!?" "THEY'RE WHEREVER I SAY THEY ARE!" "GODDAMNIT!" 🤣

When a character is flying you put a D6 under their feet. Every digit on the d6 represents 5 feet so you can tell how high they're flying when you lift them up.

For the price of a dream! Gets me every time.

Brennan channeling the spirit of Robert Moses when he says "Reality" 💀

Ross does improv, he does Shakespeare, he does music, and now you tell me he does D&D too?! Get this man a show!

That "pay attention" bar was straight heat.

This is what happens when the two nerdy kids theater kids get teamed up together in class for debate time. Everyone else just sits back and watches the "extra" flow forth 😂

His delivery of "for the price of a dream" gives me chills

Hot take: even with an elaborate table and figures and maps, you are STILL using theater of the mind. Physical artifacts give people focus!

We had soooo many issues during combat where the players did not properly visualize where the enemies are, how high, in or out of reach, which we no longer have using the physical maps & minis... Hours of arguments to the likes of "But NO, I was not in front of the enemy, I was at his BACK!" "No, I TOLD you he was looking in the exact direction your were going to", etc, etc, etc... Now, these hours are spent playing... 😄 You know, not everyone can visualize descriptions, while EVERYONE can visually understand maps and minis...

What an incredible feat of dialectic ! That's the one true way to talk about TTRPGs : the lower the stakes, the fiercer the debate.

Never have I seen 2 people embody the “her sister was a witch” energy, it’s immaculate

“We have to pay a coin richer than any gold, we have to pay attention” raw ass line

I had a DM that, for my fist time playing with ANY physical pieces other than books and sheets, used battle-map setups and minis/ministand-ins for literally every part of the game. Which meant that he had to set up different maps for each player who went to explore a different place in town each time he switched between them. It was absolutely maddening to experience. I am a fairly recent convert to the Church of Combat Battle-maps, but I was pretty young and literally thought this was how you had to do that any time you used these, and so it put me off of them for a long, long time.

6:28 this is literally the most accurate depiction of a DMs thought process when thinking through encounters

Pros of theater of the mind: -increased immersion -little or no cost -no setup required Cons of theater of the mind -people who have trouble visualizing or have short term memory may not be able to grasp the scenario -Big combats and dungeons could suffer -miscommunication could result in combat being a slog -everyone will imagine the scenario differently -details are likely to get lost in translation -requires a lot of time to set the scene in players minds -likely could cause rookie dms to struggle -does not work with big parties

Yeah, you can/should do both. Physical things help facilitate the imagination but they have to be more than just a tedious extra step.

Brennan:"Please don't have discourse in the comment section" Also Brennan: "Get in the comments!!!"

I'm a strong proponent for Theatre of the Mind combat. However, when I began running a game via Discord, my best friend (one of my players) had trouble keeping a mental image of the battle space due to his ADHD. So over the next couple of weeks I bought a Foundry license, set up a VPN, and had the group log in and play there for our next significant combat. He was able to follow along easily, didn't lose track of positioning, and made tactical decisions quickly. It was a stark difference. So while I still love TotM play, there is definitely a place for battle maps and minis/tokens. Whether you're using $500 worth of landscape and figures, or the grid on the back of some leftover wrapping paper and a few button magnets as placeholders, the effect is the same. So I say, "¿Por que no los dos?"

I play both and I like both for different reasons. They tickle 2 completely separate parts of my brain. On theater of the mind I'm enjoying the fantasy ideas that come to mind when letting creativity loose, but when grids and minis come out it's the cold, mathematical grey matter that takes over and starts optimizing statistics and maximizing efficiency.

I cherish the memories of scribbling furiously an improvised map on copier paper at the start of combat, hunched over the table like an old wizard over his scrolls, meticulously describing the fighting arena to ravenous players, marking their positions with calligraphied initials... good times

I'm glad I finally got to see the end clarification lol these two are very good actors, and this is a very good example of an acting/mental exercise in putting yourselves into a single mindset and seeing how far you can take it, even if you don't 100% believe every word you use. My biggest issue with purely theater of the mind, is my ADHD ass can be wholly focused on every piece, verb, noud and little spittle that leaves my DMs mouth, but then my brain decides to take a pee brake from my body, I will have to ask them to repeat themselves for the 5th time as to where main enemy is within this bramble patch minefield. This could be resolved with either a quick sceths or a whiteboard with scribbles on it.

First of all, it was an utter delight to see someone match Brennan’s bombastic and dramatic presentation, would love to see more of this On the subject of TotM vs Minis, I think minis are super fun and I wish I could use them in every game, and are especially good for tactical combat where positioning & direction matter, but are often impractical 1) one of my friends’ is blind, meaning she not only gets nothing from mini’s, referring to a physical map can cut her out of the action 2) it’s great & all when the game takes place in my home, but hauling my hoard to anywhere else can be tiresome, & since one never knows what might happen is a session, one that ends up purely social may feel like a huge waste 3) I’ve definitely played some games where there was enough room for the players, but not for an elaborate set up 4) it takes time to set up, which is time, not playing and depending on the scene, may simply not be worth it, say if the party flees 5) having a physical map or terrain limits the stage of the encounter to that size of the canvas, leading to situations where characters can “run off” the mat 6) reusing set assets can be frustrating; you’re entering a goblin dungeon, and you encounter five goblins, but they call for back up, and oh no, you only have 10 goblin figures…. And these goblins are supposed to be armed with full plate because they’re advanced but all the figures are using sticks and stones… And the boss who is a mutant is a spider goblin with six arms… And since bespoke figures can’t be used, you end up using pegs or coins or different figures & might as well be using theater of the mind at that point

Biggest thing against theater of the mind, some people have aphantasia, where they literally can't picture things in their heads. So, for those people a physical battle map is potentially vital.

If a DM wants to do theater of the mind with me, they better be prepared to explain the exact layout of the combat every time my turn comes around, because no matter how hard I try, that information will leave my brain after 1 minute.

This radiates with the energy of batman vs the joker but if they were competing dungeon mastrs

FOR THE PRICE OF A DREAM!

I find I have more freedom as a DM to create a sandbox world with theatre of the mind as it allows my players to go off and choose their own fights. If they go somewhere I wasn't expecting but works well for the story I can just pull up a statblock and play. No railroading the player's freedom when I don't need to limit myself to what miniatures I have brought with me.

My first encounter with playing D&D was in 1973 in College.(Yes, I am that old!) Played theater of the mind. It was set in a darkened room. Yes, the DM had a home-made screen with a flickering candle behind it as the only light source. We could only barely make out our own dice rolls. He described what we saw, and our own minds filled in with the interpretation of that description. He asked us to describe where we placed ourselves & what order we were in if walking in a line, etc.. How he kept positions and distances straight behind the screen was his concern, but we had to go by his description & our questions. I have painted & played with figures, and battle maps as well since then. I have enjoyed both ways. If I had the $ & resources of CR, I might like using miniatures even more. As much as I like movies, and even pictures, books have appealed to me more. Imagination above all! And should I say, "much cheaper."

I want someone to barrel into this conversation with Roll20

I have an answer to that first question! Flying Circus, a game about biplane fighter pilots in a fantasy setting, and it uses Theatre of the Mind exclusively for two reasons: Because keeping track of a fast-moving dynamic combat with minis is slow and miserable, and because it's unrealistic, 'cause every single pilots' memoir from WWI emphasises that absolutely nobody knows where anyone else is or what's going on at any time. And so the game's got rules for how NPCs and enemies slip away from sight when they aren't immediately relevant and then come back into view - in your sights if you've been rolling well, and in your rear-view mirror if you haven't.

The price of a dream 🤣 Love how the guys bounce off eachother

The arm veins popping out of Ross’ arms are really showing how intense this match got 😂 also got dayum kinda hawt

I’ve been waiting for this Shakespearean clash of minds

Excited for the prospect of Ross being in a side quest.

Theater of the mind id say is the best if you have intended interactable objects on your map, battle maps are the best for unintended objects. If you throw a bunch of decorations on a big map people might not spot the thing you want them to use, if you describe it with words they should figure it out. At the same time any objects you placed there purely for decoration suddenly playing a pivotal role can really enhance the experience of everyone.

Unironically some of the best Dropout content I've seen in hours

We need a new button to allow my excitement and exuberance to come through, smashing the like button repeatedly for days doesn't get across how amazing this clip of their wonderful Adventuring Academy series.

💫Manifesting Ross in future D20 campaigns 💫

I love how heated they can be, while also being completely civil and recognizing the pros and cons of each for different situations. I personally find battle-maps really helpful and someone who struggles with spatial visualization and memory, plus I quite enjoy the strategy aspect of combat. Its always awesome imo when enemies line up perfectly and you're able to shoot off a lightning spell to hit all of them, or you can perfectly place an aoe to hit protect you're allies. Even when its just a plain grid with a cavern outline scribbled on it it really helps me picture whats going on without having to fuss with the scaling and placements of things/creatures.

I use jenga blocks to show some semblance of scale and construct verticality if need be and coins or chess pieces or dice as peoples minis. It's a cheap and effective middle ground between the two ideologies. Only if there are more than two or three characters.

My only issue with theater of the mind is my dm's own mortality. I understand that when 2/3 of the players in our party keep accidentally rolling with the d12 instead of the d20 and keep forgetting that they can only do 1 action per turn that a few details might get lost in the shuffle, to the point that, it feels like you're gaslighting your DM when they forget those little details like the fact that you've intentionally tried to put some distance between you and the rest of the party to avoid any potential AOE attacks.

I'd listen to this podcast religiously

I use both. Minis are fun, maps and props are fun and my players love them but I also layer descriptive narrative over them. I talk about the smells, the weather and the soundscapes.

OMG! I love Contested Roll! Going absolutely whole hog, news channel style on these topics is completely sending me! 🤣 I have such a hard time with theater of the mind, my brain just can't keep up with that, I need to see the space! But yes! Small encounters work fine (especially when you know they're going to face roll your baddy/baddies in no time.) Keep it up! Thank you all!

the upside down water glass trick is actually very helpful, thank you brennan!

"Your ... realpolitik Dungeons and Dragons!" Amazing.

I'm just shocked that Brennan didn't hit Ross with some fun things about some players who really do need help. People with aphantasia do play dnd, and battle mats really really help them visualize what is going on and where it is going on.

I’ve been playing Blades in the Dark with a group of friends, and it’s been mostly theatre of the mind, except for one map of the city that tells us where we are in location to other areas. It’s great.

honestly theatre of the minds works better for some systems and minis work better for others. Pathfinder, Shadowrun, Lancer all work well with a battlemap while a lot of the white wolf/onyx path, sentinels of the multiverse, masks etc work better in theatre of the mind.

The KZfaq shorts I saw of this one hyped me up for this banger of an episode 😤😤😤

I see the merit in both and use both in my home games, but part of the reason why I think Murph has such dynamic encounters, like the fight on the cable cars in NADDPOD C3 comes to mind, is because they can do things that would be wildly inconvenient to have maps for that involve lots of moving pieces and environmental stuff to keep things exciting.

I'm partial to a mixture of both. We use the dry erase board, character minis, and various saved bottlecaps to provide outlines and quantitative positions of PCs NPCs and monsters, which we use to help fuel the theater in our minds!

HORSEPOTATOES!!!

Today I learned the aquarium stones I used in D&D games are called mancala beads.

If we're being real while I think many, maybe even most of us, will prefer theater of the mind the fact of that matter is that if we want D&D to be as accessible as possible we probably need maps? Like not necessarily complex or PHYSICAL maps, but existent ones for people who can't visualize images in their head. My partner can't visualize images in her head, and she hates the thought of trying to imagine maps. She sometimes LIKES D&D stuff, but in combat she needs maps to understand what is going on, even when I'm casually listening to D&D stuff.

great ep. I'm 100% phycial maps and minis even if they're digital or made with things you've scrounged from board games or your kitchen. I'm a neurodivergent player so I'm the "metaphoracle Trever" checking out during games. A physical visualisation is an accesability feature. Of course every table is different, but I think its important to make sure your considering the abilities of all your players.

Both have their advantages. Theater of the Mind enables the GM and players to exploit the uncertainty in the GM's description of the battle (asking whether the enemies can be placed on a line). It allows the GM to take more agency by placing new objects, and gives the players agency by asking for objects. In small, quick fights the switch from nerrative to combat is also much smoother, and the combat can take less time (since you don't have to set anything up). But in longer, bigger fights it's easier to lose the big picture (especially when you aren't a super GM). You can also lose a lot of time re-explaining the same stuff Battlemaps exell in oversight and weird tactical gameplay (such as seeing that the enemies are placed on a line). In bigger and longer fights it's easier to keep oversight and it reducess the stress of keeping everything in mind. But in small, quick fights you do a lot of work (setting up the map, placing and moving the mini's, etc) which slows this down. It can also give the illusion that the space is perfectly known and thus reduce the amount of interaction from the players side. I'm personally a Theater of the Mind GM, but I'll use a piece of paper and a pen to sketch out the room if my players ask for a layout. Don't be afraid to use both.

this one of the best bit of improv ive ever seen , well done boys

As always, Brennan's rants fill me with joy

I do it the other way around I use both methods depending on what fight I run. You dont need to have one style for a whole campaign

This is amazing I love this idea as a segment. I do use both, I also use static images that are NOT battle maps to put tokens on like the image of a throne room and place the tokens on there. Takes away a ton of prep time and can be SUPER immersive.

nice segment, thanks brennan and d20.

These two are amazing and I love every word that they say

I'm with Brendan. I'm playing a Wildfire Druid, I am *not* clarifying and debating where everyone is and where we can teleport every turn.

I could and would and will watch this for hours. Well done, brava!

I went into this siding with Brennan but my god Ross's monologue at the end moved me to consider the other side more than I ever have before...

I remember in the 80s my group put money together, we were a bunch of pretty early teen kids, to buy some lead miniatures for our games, it was an ordeal; we choose two of us to go to the fabled hobby store, a couple of hours bus trip mind you, we had a vote for which miniatures to buy, more what characters or monster to be represented, no actual catalogue back then. There was even a pretty heated argument if the DM should keep all the minis with our only basic and expert boxes, or everybody had to keep one. That was something. Years later with the plastic miniatures and third edition, D&D became something that broke my heart a little; more about selling you more and more stuff than actually the game itself. Theater of the mind all the way for me, even in spite of the nostalgia.

I think a healthy dose of both is perfect and is probably what draws me so much to Dimension 20 in the first place. Every practical battle set being broken up by at least one if not multiple episodes that ARE entirely theatre of the mind strikes the perfect balance for me.

We play with a "map" to show relative locations, but don't have squares/hexes for "25 feet away" etc. I've played both extremes and everything in between, and it really depends on the group playing. Some LOVE the tactical aspects and some just want the good story

actually busted up laughing when he says, "THEY ARE WHERE I SAY THEY ARE!"

*"THEY'RE WHEREVER I SAY THEY ARE!"* That should have been the walk off homerun moment... but then he followed it up with the insult to injury mike drop of "... for the price of a dream..."

Wow, this Ross has a great energy and some great points. Now I want to see Aabriya, Brennan, Ross and Matt in a game DM'ed by one of them. And then next session, another is the DM, and so on, and so forth

"or for the price... of a DREAM" was the best god damn line

My hot-take: With a very good-to-great GM & party always theater of the mind. We tell him what we want to try and do, possibly a few small questions left unclear from the previous discussion ("Am I close enough to hit with my bow?" "Probably") maybe chuck a few dice, and he paints an amazing picture of what unfolds. These have always been my most enjoyable games. Yes, we play a bit fast & lose with the rules... but the rules are not really the point, they just provide a framework for the improvisational storytelling & acting. Best RPG session I ever had was our core group back in college checking out a new system/world with an interesting premise.. we all read the sourcebook, create our character with a full page of backstory/personality/etc. Then when we got the to table the GM literally took our sheets and said "Don't play the *game*, play your *characters*.. let's go". It was an amazing role playing experience. Buuuut... if you've got a middlin' to bad GM or a iffy group... yeah, that doesn't work so well. You need a more grounded, knowable game-state for the play to really work. But for my money, I'd rather play just a regular *game* without the RP part with that kind of group. If we're gonna get mired in how many hexes away the chest in and all that jazz there are better systems that just focus on that strategic combat stuff (Gloomhaven, Warhammer, War for the Ring).

You two are the best combo ever!

My groups and I use maps to catalyze our imagination. We get the best of both worlds: a physical environment to be able to map out movement/tactics AND a basis to let our mind-theatres run wild.

Great contest, love the heat. Good burn, much learn.

I have recently done more theatre of mind, and it can be great! It can speed up some battles, where the map isn't that important, so much! It also helps with things that you just can't do on battlemaps, like intense verticality on 2d maps.

brennan raises a good point, there's an analog appeal, a quirk, a nostalgia, to that expo marker smell if i'm playing dnd on discord with someone it's gonna feel like another voice chat, i do voice chats every goddamn day surrounding sensory experiences change your perception of media. the same goes for playing video games on a crt with the right controller or watching a new movie in the theater

It appears to me, that battle maps are ideal for combat with a standard group?, but if you're with a group of people who can all do theater of the mind, it's something else.

Both of these gentlemen rank among my favorite people. We need them both at the table!

I love minis and battle maps, I've used them for a whole bunch of Pathfinder games. The problem I started to encounter with my group is that (and I suspect this comes from them transitioning from video games), they'd get into very rigid thinking about what was and was not capable of being interacted with. If it didn't have some sort of representation on the map, they just wouldn't consider it. Retreating from the edge of the battle arena? Setting traps in hallways? Hit and Run tactics throughout the forest? These became so much harder for me to a) get the players to consider and b) manifest onto the battle map if they ever did choose to do that. Furthermore, taking aside the "dry-erase marker + plastic sheet" style for a moment, Battle-maps and minis are *expensive* and if you want a robust enough collection to be able to field a visually distinct cast of enemy NPCs and monsters on a variety of terrain types with multiple different landscape pieces; the number of different components goes up dramatically. I've been moving over slowly to systems like Dungeon World or Shadow of the Demon Lord that *can* have physical representations when and if the situation calls for it, but on-the-fly dramatic combat inside the Theater of the Mind is still eminently doable.

One thing to consider about battlemaps is how helpful they can be for people with learning disabilities. As DM with ADHD, I literally cannot keep track of where things are in battles just in my head, so having a battlemap is extremely useful.

I love this segment!

The problem with theater of the mind is that when the DM describes the scene to his 4 players, there is now 5 different versions of what is going on. No matter how specific your descriptions are, someone is going to have a different visualization (either by missing a detail or adding one where there isn't one) and that can really throw off the game.

What I love about these segments is how much of Abria Brenna is channeling when he's making a point.

As someone with a horrendous memory, some sort of visual component is just an absolute must for me. When playing online you get both too, because you get the visual map and little icons, but need to use theatre of the mind to think of it as something more than a slideshow.

This is such a great video!

"A coin richer than any gold" is a phrase that didn't need to go that hard for such a topic

Theater of the mind has one aspect i consider a huge advantage: the medium doesnt change. I find it easier to maintain immersion and flow, and combat turns are quicker when the environment is parsed down to the "camera shot" of the action. Players dont have to keep track and think of everything like i do, they just keep track of things that come up organically. I think having an environment map for yourself is still helpful, and sharing it with the players is a great way to hybridize the two

As much as I love reading I can't actually imagine things in my head. I can get impressions, the concept and I can string it all together from memory but I don't get images the way other people do so battle maps FTW plus they're fun to make :(

The last 50 seconds of this video might have been the best DM advice for my current campaign I could have heard.